24 février 2014

I.She walks in Beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender lightWhich Heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.
One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

III.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,A heart whose love is innocent!

14 février 2014

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle's compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
***

14 janvier 2014

One of my favorite annual events, the publication of the Notebook’s year-end Fantasy Double Features poll. One of my favorite things to write, and read. I wrote a small piece I’m very proud of, which I’m happy to have published in such incredible company.

For this assignment, the brief was: pair an 'old' film and a 'new' film, each seen in 2013. Instead, I offer two old-new films, each rediscovered in their own way for the first time in 2013, and each in their own way the most moving cinematic moment(s) of my year.First, an untitled film, or rather, one whose title I won't share. A fragment, really, just seven seconds long, nearly silent, and certainly without speaking. 'Shot,' if you can call it that, by an app that records video from Skype, and thus far never seen any larger than 320 × 240 pixels. A film I made, accidentally, in 2010, its existence forgotten since then, which somehow arrived in 2013 as new and, importantly, complete. A film that presents at most a single gesture, or maybe two.This fragment has made me smile and cry more than any other in 2013.I've told you nothing of it. Publicly, it has never existed, never been seen except by my own eyes. Privately, it makes sense only as a tiny piece of a much larger history, to which only two people could ever be privy. I wonder if, were this private diary to survive, it could ever be understood.Sappho's poems survive only in fragments.Second, a silent film, lovingly restored by cinematic saint Kevin Brownlow, and projected on 4K at the 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival in front of a crowd much too sparse.The Big Parade(King Vidor, 1925) is the story of a long-distance relationship—begun in tenderness, trampled by circumstance, sustained by faith, and reunited by commitment. It is other things as well; there's tenderness and comedy, both to be found in brotherhood, and the tragedy and revelation of disillusionment's double-edged sword. But most of all, this story is of unfaltering love. To be close, then to be far away, then to draw close again; to hobble and stumble and run to hold your love again.﻿

02 janvier 2014

I gave up the cinema in 2013, despite all contrary appearances. I don't have much to publicly say about this change of commitment that isn't buried beneath my forthcoming contribution to the Mubi year-end poll, but I do still without reservation present a non-chronological list of my year in cinema, in rough order of preference.

My definitions of cinema continue to change, and this year I felt more connected to short-form and internet content than ever before, and less inclined to consider television as 'cinema' except where the work in question was originally otherwise 'cinematic' according to my definitional instincts.

May this list offer you hints and gifts and reflections for your own journey through the world, and through the world of moving images.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

Before familiarity can turn into awareness, the familiar must be stripped of its inconspicuousness; we must give up assuming that the object in question needs no explanation. However frequently recurrent, modest, vulgar it may be, it will now be labeled as something unusual.

It is necessary to confront vague ideas with clear images.

In order to hear a bare sound we have to listen away from things, divert our ear from them, i.e., listen abstractly.